Final Major Project - The Battle of My Body Hair
During FAD I started to explore ideas of female body hair, looking into collective attitudes, social expectations and the impact of the porn industry on women and their relationships with body hair. This was the first time I had centered a project around an issue that I have experience with - venturing into my own deep-rooted misogyny and analysing the impact of complete strangers commenting on what I choose to do with my body.
I don't often work from my own experiences but being vulnerable allowed me to have in-depth conversations about female body hair with people I've only recently decided to be so open with. There was a space for me to talk about how hair has formed so many parts of my identity but to also point out that it's unintentionally invited others to have an opinion on a body that isn't their own. I've learnt so much about my body through simply allowing it to exist, this project will be a further extension of these feelings - reclaiming it and all of its political connotations.
My FMP is focused on the empowerment and reclamation of female body hair, exploring my own complicated relationship and forever changing opinions. I want to start dismantling the way I view hair, understanding the role that the sexualisation of young women, constructs of gender, sexual identity and femininity have in our conversations surrounding body hair. The idea behind the title "The Battle of My Body Hair" is to demonstrate that this is ongoing, that my thoughts and feelings towards my body hair will change and won't always remain positive either. It's a complex and long debated topic, one that won't be dismantled easily but I want to start a healthy conversation through my FMP that doesn't shame women for conflicting emotions towards their body hair.
This projects aim is to create a body of work that I wished I could have seen earlier, displaying authentic representations of hair and the fluctuating feelings towards it. I want to share my experiences and hopefully, invite other women to do the same.
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